Woolf

Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf.
Virginia Woolf
1. Life (1882-1941)
Her father Leslie Stephen
was an eminent Victorian
man of letters.
She grew up in a literary
and intellectual
atmosphere with free
access to her father’s library
Leslie Stephen with Virginia Woolf.
Childhood experiences of death and sexual abuse led to depression
the death of her mother her stepbrothers

when she was 13
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Virginia Woolf
1. Life (1882-1941)
Suicide
The Second World War increased her

anxiety and fears. After rewriting drafts
of her suicide note, she put rocks into
her pockets and drowned herself in the
River Ouse.
Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf
2. Literary career
The Bloomsbury Group  In 1904

she moved to Bloomsbury and became a
member of the Bloomsbury Group. This
meant the rejection of traditional morality
and artistic convention.
Experimentation  best known as one

The Bloomsbury Group of the great experimental novelists during
the modernist period.

Virginia Woolf
2. Literary career
Evolution of her style in her main novels
• The Voyage Out (1915)

Traditional
• Night and Day (1917) narratives
• Jacob’s room (1922) Narrative experimentation with the

novel
• Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
A more completely developed
“stream-of-consciousness
• To the Lighthouse (1927) technique”

Virginia Woolf
2. Literary career
A feminist writer  the themes of androgyny, women and writing
Describes Clarissa Dalloway and

• Mrs. Dalloway (1925) Sally Seton’s relationship as young
women
• Orlando (1928) Deals with androgyny
Shows Woolf’s concern with the

questions of women’s subjugation
• A Room of One’s Own and the relationship between women
(1929) and writing

Virginia Woolf
3. A modernist novelist
• Main aim  to give voice to the complex inner world of feeling and
memory.
• The human personality  a continuous shift of impressions and

emotions.
• Narrator  disappearance of the omniscient narrator.
• Point of view  shifted inside the characters’ minds through flashbacks,

associations of ideas, momentary impressions presented as a continuous
flux.
Vanessa Bell, Mrs St John Hutchinson, 1915,

Tate Gallery, London

Virginia Woolf
4. Woolf vs Joyce
Woolf’s stream of Joyce’s stream of
consciousness consciousness
never lets her characters’ characters show their

thoughts flow without control, thoughts directly through
maintains logical and interior monologue,
grammatical organisation sometimes in an incoherent
and syntactically
unorthodox way

Virginia Woolf
4. Woolf vs Joyce
Moments of being Epiphanies
Rare moments of insight The sudden spiritual

during the characters’ daily manifestation caused by a
life when they can see trivial gesture, an external
reality behind appearances object  the character is
led to a self-realization
about himself/herself

Virginia Woolf
5. Mrs Dalloway (1925)

• Takes place on a single ordinary day
in June 1923.
• Follows the protagonist through a

very small area of London, from the
morning to the night of the day on
which she gives a large formal party.
• Clarissa Dalloway’s party is the

climax of the novel and unifies the
Cover for the first edition of Mrs. narrative by gathering all the people
Dalloway, London, Hogarth Press,
1925. she thinks about during the day.

Virginia Woolf

Clarissa Dalloway
• A London society lady of fifty-one, the
wife of a Conservative MP, Richard
Dalloway, who has conventional views
on women’s rights.
• Had a possessive father, refused

Peter Walsh, a man who would force
Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Dalloway in Marleen Gorris’s her to share everything.
1997 film adaptation

Virginia Woolf

Clarissa Dalloway
• Characterized by opposing feelings:
her need for freedom and
independence and her class
consciousness.
• Her life appears to be an effort towards

order and peace, an attempt to
overcome her weakness and sense of
Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Dalloway in Marleen
Gorris’s 1997 film adaptation failure.

Virginia Woolf

Septimus Warren Smith
• A young poet and lover of
Shakespeare.
• When the war broke out,

enlisted for patriotic reasons.
Rupert Graves as Septimus in Marleen Gorris’s 1997 film

• An extremely sensitive man who
adaptation
can suddenly fall prey to panic
and fear, or feelings of guilt.

Virginia Woolf

Septimus Warren Smith
• A character specifically
connected with the war.
• Suffers from headaches and

insomnia.
Rupert Graves as Septimus in Marleen Gorris’s 1997 film • Finally commits suicide.
adaptation

Virginia Woolf
6. To the Lighthouse (1927)

No traditional plot  a series of experiences, memories, emotions
and feelings held together by symbols.
The story develops over a period of ten years.
Divided into three sections:
1. The Window  It starts just

before World War I. It is set
during a summer afternoon
and evening in a summer
home on the Isle of Skye in
the Hebrides The original St. Ives lighthouse, built by John Smeaton in
1830.

Virginia Woolf

2. Time Passes  covers
about ten years. The
children grow up, war
breaks out, Mrs Ramsay
dies suddenly one night.
Her eldest son, Andrew, is
killed in battle, and her
daughter Prue dies too. The
summerhouse falls into a The original St. Ives lighthouse, built by John Smeaton in
1830.
state of decay for ten years

until the family comes back.

Virginia Woolf
3. The Lighthouse  lasts

less than one day. time
experienced, and especially
recaptured in memory,
replaces outer time. Mr
Ramsay, his son James
and his daughter Cam sail
to the lighthouse. Lily The original St. Ives lighthouse, built by John Smeaton in
1830.
succeeds in finishing her
painting.

Virginia Woolf
7. To the Lighthouse: characters

MRS RAMSAY
• A beautiful woman and loving wife,

constantly provides support to the other
characters in the novel.
• As a mother, her main objective is to

preserve her son James’s sense of hope
and wonder in relation to the lighthouse.
Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf at Asheham, ca.
1910, National Portrait Gallery, London.

Virginia Woolf

MRS RAMSAY
• She realizes that the beauty of

this world is ephemeral and
should be protected.
• She has the ability to bring

together different things into a
whole.
Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf at Asheham, ca.

• After her death, Lily and the other 1910, National Portrait Gallery, London.
characters try to reach this unity.

Virginia Woolf

LILY BRISCOE
• A painter who fears her work will

end up in attics or under a couch.
• Rejects the conventional image of

the woman represented by Mrs
Ramsay.
Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell painting,

1915, National Galleries of Scotland.

Virginia Woolf

LILY BRISCOE
• Her portrait of Mrs. Ramsay

embodies her doubts: at the beginning
of the novel she cannot make sense of
the shapes and colours that she tries
to reproduce.
• Undergoes a drastic change evolving

Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell painting, into an artist who achieves her final
1915, National Galleries of Scotland.
vision.

Virginia Woolf
8. To the Lighthouse: themes

a. Transience  the idea that nothing lasts runs
through the novel
 Mrs Ramsay does not want

her children to become adults.
 The house falls into decay.
 Death unexpectedly ends life.
St. Ives, Cornwall, the setting for The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

b. Loss
 Minta loses her brooch on the

beach.
 The family loses some of its

members.

Virginia Woolf

c. Art  the ambition to stop the flux of time is embodied by
the artist Lily Briscoe.
d. The force of love 

Mrs Ramsay believes that
also love can create durable
memories making moments
permanent.

Virginia Woolf
9. To the Lighthouse: symbolism

The sound of the sea  the
fullness of life and the imminence of
death, uncertainty.
The land and the house  idea of

shelter and stability.
The window  the dividing and

A scene from 2002’s The Hours, directed
by Stephen Daldry. connecting point between the self and
society.

Virginia Woolf
9. To the Lighthouse: symbolism
The lighthouse
•a positive symbol linked to light,

comfort, hope and enthusiasm, a
reference point in a changing world.
•the inaccessible destination leading to

frustration and threatening danger.
A scene from 2002’s The Hours, directed
by Stephen Daldry.

Virginia Woolf
10. A Room of One’s Own (1929)

• Woolf had been invited to give a lecture on the
topic of Women and Fiction. She advanced the
thesis that “a woman must have money and a
room of her own if she is to write fiction”.
• Her essay is constructed as a partly-

fictionalized narrative of the steps that led her
to adopt this thesis.
A contemporary edition of A Room

of One’s Own.

Virginia Woolf

• She dramatizes that mental process in the character of an
imaginary narrator (“call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton,
Mary Carmichael or by any name you please--it is not a
matter of any importance”).
• The narrator reflects on the different educational

experiences available to men and women as well as on
more material differences in their lives.
• The figure of Judith Shakespeare is generated as an

example of the tragic fate a highly intelligent woman would
have met.

of One’s Own.

Virginia Woolf

• She considers the achievements of the
major women novelists of the nineteenth
century and reflects on the importance
of tradition to an aspiring writer.
• Woolf closes the essay with an

exhortation to her audience of women to
take up the tradition that has been so
hardly bequeathed to them, and to
increase the endowment for their own
daughters.
of One’s Own.

Virginia Woolf

MAIN THEMES
 Women’s position in fiction and in real
life.
 Critique of patriarchal society.
 Struggle for women’s rights.

Woolf

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Virginia Woolf

Leslie Stephen with Virginia Woolf.

Childhood experiences of death and sexual abuse led to depression

the death of her mother her stepbrothers

Only Connect ... New Directions

The Second World War increased her

Only Connect ... New Directions

The Bloomsbury Group  In 1904

Experimentation  best known as one

Only Connect ... New Directions

• The Voyage Out (1915)

• Jacob’s room (1922) Narrative experimentation with the

Only Connect ... New Directions

Describes Clarissa Dalloway and

• Orlando (1928) Deals with androgyny

Shows Woolf’s concern with the

Only Connect ... New Directions

• The human personality  a continuous shift of impressions and

• Narrator  disappearance of the omniscient narrator.

• Point of view  shifted inside the characters’ minds through flashbacks,

Vanessa Bell, Mrs St John Hutchinson, 1915,

Only Connect ... New Directions

never lets her characters’ characters show their

Only Connect ... New Directions

Rare moments of insight The sudden spiritual

Only Connect ... New Directions

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925)

• Follows the protagonist through a

• Clarissa Dalloway’s party is the

Only Connect ... New Directions

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925)

• Had a possessive father, refused

Only Connect ... New Directions

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925)

• Her life appears to be an effort towards

Only Connect ... New Directions

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925)

• When the war broke out,

Rupert Graves as Septimus in Marleen Gorris’s 1997 film

Only Connect ... New Directions

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925)

• Suffers from headaches and

Only Connect ... New Directions

6. To the Lighthouse (1927)

The story develops over a period of ten years.

Divided into three sections:

1. The Window  It starts just

Only Connect ... New Directions

6. To the Lighthouse (1927)

state of decay for ten years

Only Connect ... New Directions

6. To the Lighthouse (1927)

3. The Lighthouse  lasts

Only Connect ... New Directions

7. To the Lighthouse: characters

• A beautiful woman and loving wife,

• As a mother, her main objective is to

Only Connect ... New Directions

7. To the Lighthouse: characters

• She realizes that the beauty of

• She has the ability to bring

Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf at Asheham, ca.

characters try to reach this unity.

Only Connect ... New Directions